Tercerunquinto: Prólogo

Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Limmatstrasse, Zurich

The collective has performed dozens of activities and interventions in which they question the limits of private and public spaces and explore the laws that define those limits. In the past, Tercerunquintos´ projects became manifest in rather ephemeral, architectonical shapes or in infrastructural interventions. In this exhibition, artistic responses to a selection of previous interventions are presented. Another element is a new project called Prólogo, Galería Peter Kilchmann, Zurich that was specially created for Zurich. It deals with the institutional conditions of a gallery. Drawings, as well as photographs, sculptures and video works will be on display. 

 

Through the use of simple interventions, early works, such as Integración del plano exterior y interior (Integration of the exterior and interior space) from the year 1998, questioned the bordersbetween private and public ground. During this project, a brick wall was raised between the interior and the exterior space through a window of a ground-floor flat. 

 

In Pared (Wall), which also dates back to 1998, a wall separates two rooms that are connected by a door, into four units. 

 

In 2005, the artists were invited to organize an exhibition at the institute Power Plant in Toronto. This former power plant provides only few accesses. Tercerunquinto opened the building up by means of a new entrance, which does not present any restrictions regarding architecture, museography or economy. Thus, in the literal as well as the metaphorical sense, a free access was created. They called this work Open Access. 

 

The artists were also invited to exhibit at the IKON Gallery in Birmingham, UK, after it had moved into a new building in 2008. They called their intervention I AM WHAT I AM. The project consisted of cutting this famous slogan in large letters into an exterior wall of a gallery. The resulting holes provided a view into the inside. The artists were interested in the ambiguity of the slogan, through which the gallery could be interpreted in various ways. They left the spectators' guessing as to whether it was meant to be an ostentatious or an obedient gesture. 

 

Also in the year 2008, Tercerunquinto were invited to present their first overview exhibition in the art Museum Carrillo Gil in Mexico City (catalogue). Alongside a presentation of various previous interventions, they implemented the following project: The project proposed the removal of institutional signs (letters), attached to the exterior building walls, by one of the unionized employees working at the Museum. These institutional signs were relocated on one of the gallery walls. Once it was placed inside the museum, the signs were periodically cleaned and polished - during the period of time of the exhibition – by the same unionized employee.